He Sets His Spoon Down And I Hear The Crinkle Of The Newspaper Being Folded. I Glance At The Clock Then

He sets his spoon down and I hear the crinkle of the newspaper being folded. I glance at the clock then at him.

"A little early to be..." the words die on my lips.

He's looking at me. His soft blue eyes suddenly sharp. He never looks at me these days. Not really. I think he is afraid of what he might see. Or more of what he won't.

He clears his throat.

"I'll be away for business over the weekend. I'm leaving Friday morning."

"Oh." Is all I manage, staring back, fighting the butterflies that leap to life in my stomach.

He breaks eye contact and I tell myself it is because those few seconds were all he could bear and not because the joy I failed to keep from my eyes stung him. He rings the bell for the maid signalling he's done with breakfast and ready for his things, placing it gently back on the table before he speaks.

He swallows staring at the wood of the tabletop, "You may wish to invite company to-- pass the time. If you do I shall ask Charles to stay on call while I am gone. Should you need to take the carriage anywhere."

"Oh," I find myself repeating. "Oh, no. No, I couldn't. Truly. I'll be just fine on my own."

"You need not worry about appearances." He offers quietly. "I can handle any untoward rumours."

My husband has never been a loud man. But he is far from quiet either. Always firm and focused and articulate. His actions. His gaze. His words.

This person standing before me is foreign. Is blunted around the edges. If not defeated, losing a battle that seems to have been raging longer than I've known. One that has been wearing him down slowly but surely.

You need not worry about appearances.

And in only these words he is telling me he knows. He is telling me he will not interfere. He is giving me some warped form of permission.

I can handle any untoward rumours

And in only these words he is telling me he knows. That others do too. That we have been the subject of the kind of gossip that buries itself under skin and drives reputations to rot. He is saying he will save face for us both. That when the speculation comes for us, he will defend me. I try and tell myself that of course he would. For such talk would be the end of him too. But I know I am fooling myself. He could abandon me. Let the stories devour me until my gowns were ragged and I was destitute.

This has nothing to do with shielding his pride from being wounded by others finding out what his wife was, or did when his eyes were turned. No. If this had to do with pride, well I would have dealt with the fallout a long time ago. He does not have to do this and yet he is. For me. And I find myself wishing in this moment his intentions were more selfish so I did not have to feel so terrible.

I try to ignore the fact that the way he says these words implies he has handled worse. That the rumours might be easier to deal with than the betrayal. The heartbreak.

I try to ignore the fact that he might be heartbroken. That I may have broken his heart.

"I-- I think I would rather be without the staff over the weekend. Have some time to myself." Without prying eyes. He may be able to handle rumours but I don't know if she can. I choose my words carefully. "And I do not believe I'll be needing to leave. I think I'll spend the time resting." In bed. With company. With her.  I choose my words carefully but it does not matter. He knows. Of course, he knows.

He nods just as Lucy enters the room. I take the coat from her. "I've got it, thank you. You are dismissed."

She bows her head politely and retreats into the hallway. He tucks the last of the papers into his briefcase and snaps the closures shut.

"Here," I say as he turns, "let me."

He isn't looking at me again. He's looking at the jacket in my hands. The hollows under his eyes seem darker than they did even a week ago. I realize I don't know if he's been sleeping. I haven't asked. And he's hasn't said anything. We haven't shared a bed in months. When was the last time we spoke? Really spoke? Had a conversation that wasn't idle chatter to pass mealtime?

He nods allowing me to help him into the sleeves but steps away as soon as I'm done, managing the buttons himself.

"Whatever will I do with myself while you're away?" I tease, but it comes out dry. A futile attempt to lighten his solemn mood.

I'm sure you'll find something to keep yourself entertained, Emma. I expect him to respond back, much too seriously, just as he used to. As he used to when we smiled together. When we made conversation. When he looked at me and was not afraid.

But instead, he pauses with his back turned to me hands clutching his briefcase on the table.

"Be happy, Emmaline." He says softly but clearly. "While I am away, be happy."

My heart shudders as I exhale his name. But he is already striding out of the dining room down the hall. The front door opens and shuts within a moment, but the echoes linger long after, haunting the halls and hollow rooms of this house.

When is the last time I brushed my teeth?

Looked at my father and did not think him weak

When is the last time I ate cereal for breakfast

Or went outside

Or held someone’s hand

When is the last time I cried

Really wept

Or knew why I was getting out of bed

When is the last time I saw you

When is the last time I loved

Looked at someone at did not simply think them beautiful

But wondered what it would be like for that beauty to choose me

When is the last time someone looked at me and I blushed

Not because I felt ashamed but because

Their gaze tasted like possibility

Like a honeymoon in library

When is the last time I felt

Excited

When is the last time I wanted

And was hurt by disappointment

When is the last time my heartbreak fissured the earth

Instead of simply burying me deeper in endless night

When is the last time I let someone take from me until I was empty

And sat with that hollow until I was rebirthed

When is the last time I was a child

When is the last time I was alone and felt lonely

When is the last time I wrote a poem?

It has been so long

So

Long

~ I have since been resuscitated

I met you when I was young. We were both young, but now I see it. I was 15 and you were older and kind and spent smiles like they cost you nothing. Maybe it was this illusion of abundance that originally tipped me into the fall but you were everything I never thought could exist for me.

My best friend introduced us in passing. I met you mid-morning in the middle of the week in the middle of a bustling hallway. Maybe this was the first sign that we would never be anything all the way. You made a joke about my name but it was all in good fun and to hear my name on your tongue made my palms prick. All I saw was your smile, brilliant enough to blind. It hurt to look at you too long, but I did it anyway. I was always a little bit of a masochist I suppose. You will learn this soon enough, when I love you so hard it hurts. When I manage to turn this soft thing between us sharp. But in fact, you won't. You won't learn this. And perhaps that is where we begin to fall apart. Or when I do. I begin to fall apart. Because we never seemed to do much of anything to you. We never seemed to touch you at all. While we tore me apart. Or I did. I guess it was always me doing the breaking, wasn't it?

We leave after last period to get lunch from the place near school you swear has the best fries. We miss 3 busses trying to figure out the route, the last one is on me because I can't run in flats with my school bag. While I walk, you sprint across the parking lot to buy our tickets but we're already too late. I don't want to watch the movie even if it's only 5 minutes in. I want to leave. I've wanted to leave since we waited for your food in awkward silence for 15 minutes but I swallowed and called it first date nerves even though we never said it was a date and I know now that it most definitely wasn't. And that's how things always were between us, weren't they? Me being let down by my own expectations of you. Me taking your kindness and taking and taking and taking even what wasn't there?

You let me pick what we watch instead since we're already here and pay for my ticket. I return the cost to you in the dark of the theatre. The movie is bad. In fact it's awful. I lean away from you and bite my nails during the sex scenes I didn't expect from the trailer. I wince every time I hear you shift, so sure you hate me as much as you hate the film, quietly begging for it to be over. We leave after it's done. I apologize. I didn't know it would be that terrible. You tell me we totally could have caught the original one we came to see and I nod, holding back tears that taste like shame. But you mean nothing by it.

It's summer, warm and sticky, walking across the parking lot.

I fell out of love with you then.

I didn't know it in that instant but looking back on it, this is the exact moment.

I realize there is nothing here. Nothing between us but space. There is nothing here, and the question is seeded if there ever was. The thought takes many weeks to root and bud. Months to flower and come to fruition. But it is planted here. Here, I keep searching for a feeling of comfort even if just in your presence but there is nothing to find. My stomach turns at my mother's missed calls, she's wondering where I am, who I'm with, and I'm panicking because I am still young. You offer me nothing but shrugged shoulders and it is worse because I know you mean well. Or rather that you mean nothing by it. And suddenly I know that I need you to say something. I need you to say something that matters right now. Or there will be nothing to come back to tomorrow.

But you don't. You don't walk me home. You walk me to the street across from my father's apartment building. Nod. One hand wave. See you later. Walk back across the street before the light can turn red again. You don't look back. And of course, I only know this because I look back. Stare after you. Not heartbroken yet. But gently being let down. For the next few days I would rather not think about you. I try many times to remake how it happened in my head but I'm grasping at threads. There is too little material to sew a new tapestry memory from stray comments and wayward touches.

After this butterflies were not summoned at the sound of your name, funny how easy delicate things die isint it. After this, I did not feel the tug of your orbit's gravity pulling me closer to you in a crowded room. Your words sounded less and less divine to me, I think this is because I started hearing what you were saying instead of what I wanted you to be saying. After this, the poetry about you turned sad, then angry, then ran mostly dry. There were no more tears shed over you in the bathroom around the corner from the theatre classroom because your promises were pretty coloured tissue paper flowers to me now. Good for decoration and conversation, but they would tear easy, for they were never meant to last. Never crafted to be put to the test.

We try again a few times. Every once in a while I find you at my locker at the end of the day and we try again. Painfully awkward, but we try again and again and every time I think it's over you're there again. Here is where you instill in me the inability to get over you all the way. You do it by accident. Or at least mean nothing by it. And I begin to understand this the hard way. It's hard because everything means something to me. For I have spent my life trying to squeeze enough from the nothings cast my way.

You ask me out of the blue if I'd like to go for bubble tea and I say I've never tried it so we do. My mother is at work and my sister is in school and no one is at home to expect me and I feel sickeningly giddy at the little rebellion. The silence is only half as uncomfortable as before. The other half-emptied of expectation and filled with acceptance. But the place is closed and this time I laugh at the inconvenience fate keeps gifting us. I tell myself it's a sign. One I'll look at later. We go somewhere else. Somewhere convenient. Somewhere familiar.

You buy me an iced coffee we playfully push the two dollars back and forth across the table as I insist to pay you back and you refuse. As a gentleman. As a friend. The spell is broken when you ask about a scar and I realize I could never tell you. Well, I could. But I don't want to. That someone like you would never understand. And you let the subject drop so easily. You let it all go so easily. Instead you check the bus schedule and walk me to my stop. You get on your bike and ride down the street and you don't look back.

Another time you meet me at the mall. My father asks to meet you so he does. You are the first boy I know that he ever meets. But of course, this means nothing to you. And so I try to let this mean nothing to me too. I link our arms together and it's easier to touch you. Without anticipation. You leave me after we eat cinnamon rolls and do not look back. And I always find myself looking after you. A part of me brought back to the piece of myself left in that movie theatre parking lot in the afternoon sun. But I don't ever really love you again after that.

And I am better for it.

We are better for it.

I am glad I still have you.

For I don't know what would have become of us if not for your careless gaze and fickle heart.

I do not know what would have become of me.

And I am grateful now, for the falling out of love.

- #1: reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him

https://wisp-of-thought.tumblr.com/post/652089718796959744

hello do you still have the link for the full version of this? 😭 i pressed the link in the notes but the post was unavailable 💔

Don't know why!! Sorry :( here you go!

I am three

I ask my mother to have ice cream for dinner

And she says no

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will have ice cream for dinner

I am ten

The people at my new school make fun of my hair

My arms

My legs

My teeth

I tell my mother I want to take my skin off

I want to pluck my bones out

She tells me I could try waxing

I could get braces

She tells me it will hurt

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

I will be beautiful

I will be able to handle the pain of changing my body

I am fifteen

The doctor says I need to be admitted to the hospital

I say no

My parents say I do not get a choice

I'm a minor

And I promise myself that

When I grow up

My "no" will matter

I will get to choose when and how I heal

I will get to choose if I don’t

I am 17 and there is ice cream in the freezer

And I eat it for dinner

But the satisfaction isint as sweet as I thought it would be at three

I miss my mother and decide to have a side of vegetables too

I am 17 and I am beautiful because I say so

I am 17 and decide to heal because I deserve to

I am 17

I am not grown up

I am still growing

I think I will be for a while

"I miss you."

"It is easy to miss someone when you are lonely and the night is quiet. You crave company and companionship. You do not crave me."

I want to say

"Missing you is never easy."

I want to say

"I crave you always. It is you, always."

But instead I say,

"Yes, I miss you then. But I miss you most when I am surrounded by people and happiness. Because it is then my heart aches deepest with the knowledge that there is no one else I would rather share this joy with."

~ even in my dreams you do not respond (rewriting the conversation we never had)